Gendernomics: Models of Attraction

Within marketing purchasing models serve as tools to determine how consumers make decisions regarding purchases. If one can deduce which model consumers rely on when they make their decision, the product and presentation can be tailored so that it fits well into this model, and stands apart from the competition. The models can be broken down further into models for quality, pricing, positioning and various others, in second-order consumer analysis. An example would be that if customers value perceived quality as the most important characteristic of a product, which component factors make up “quality”.

I touched on such models in “Gendernomics”, where I argue that female attraction is based on a weighted compensatory model, rather than a straight-up non-compensatory model. This differs from the male model, that at least for short-term mating appears to be very close to a ranked model of sorts. This has some overlap with the manner in which humans make purchase decisions within a marketplace under various forms of limitations. Buying decisions differ based on the nature of the purchase, we cannot make a full system 2 decision every time we decide on what drink to get with a meal, and we cannot make a system 1 decision when it comes to making investments or purchases with long-term consequences.

As I wrote this, my view of the female models somewhat changed as one cannot explain both sets of female sexual strategy with a single model. As a result of this I found myself refining the concepts I used in the book, in order to create a better construct for the female sexual strategies.

Non-Compensatory Models

This is the most simple model of those I speak of in this article, for this model one simply lists the various product preferences in a sheet, assigns a score to each characteristic, and the product that scores the highest “wins“. This is quite similar to short-term mating choices for men, that tend to lean heavily towards beauty as a proxy for fertility as the chief characteristic of decision-making. Such models are often created in order to simplify decision-making, and frequently fail to take into account trade-offs between options, fail to collect all the relevant information and relies heavily upon one or two main characteristics. Within Non-compensatory models there are 4 primary categories, conjunctive, disjunctive, lexicographic and elimination by aspects.

In conjunctive models the person uses minimum cutoff values on desired attributes. An example would be a consumer that looks at a car, and requires a score of at least 6 on gas mileage in order to consider a car. In disjunctive models the consumer is willing to trade-off certain features for other features, a low-carb dieter for instance may be willing to accept a lower protein content if the fat content improves. In the lexicographic model, the person will buy whatever product scores the highest on the most important attribute, for instance the comparison may start with gas mileage, if more than one alternative remains, he may then consider driving comfort, and so on. Finally, the elimination by aspects approach is a mixture of the lexicographic model and the disjunctive model, as the consumer ranks the characteristics by importance but also adds in minimum values.

Models of Attraction

When one studies human male attraction, the visual nature of it is quite central. This does make evolutionary sense, as things like hair, teeth, figure and various other visual queues are also fertility cues. Over time, men who were better at seeing these visual cues, would have had a higher number of offspring who shared the preference for the very visual cues that are linked with higher numbers of offspring. This can be likened to a lexicographic model, where the male first considers fertility cues, then he may go on to consider other characteristics if there are more options remaining.

The female model on the other hand is more difficult to nail down, but based on the book “A Billion Wicked Thoughts” that based on search engine data describes it as a detective agency, appears to be an elimination by aspects model, where characteristics are ranked by importance, but also have certain minimum values. In essence a woman’s mind works off the statement “You must be this tall for me to ride you“. This correlates very well with the concept of “hypergamy”, the tendency of women to always prefer a mate of higher value than themselves, which arguably serves as a form of risk-mitigation. After all, if a mate is 2 – 3 points above your own value, then it follows that if your value increases or theirs decreases, you there is a some leeway, in addition to a margin of error in judgment.

This can be likened to the concept of a “hurdle-rate” in investments, where a prospective investment must promise a return over a certain rate, often the cost of capital, but it may also be another hurdle in order to be considered. However, this is also simplified, as if we break it down, short-term mating vs. long-term mating are different decisions. While one may argue that for a woman, a short-term mating decision will have had potentially long-term consequences back before birth control as out of wedlock children would have been a major risk, this risk appears to be acceptable for women provided the long-term rewards are great enough. Thus, the existence of dual-models for women based on whether the decision undertaken is a high or low investment decision follows.

For the long-term decision the elimination by aspects model, with weighted criteria appears to be the valid one, as this reflects a high-investment and high risk prospect. After all, she is exclusively promising her fertility/sexuality to a single male, thus, she must ensure that this is the one who promises the best deal according to hypergamy. This is the model that is the source of the hundreds of traits women claim they want in a man that fill page after page of magazines. This outlines every trait she thinks/should want in a partner according to social programming. This also correlates nicely with the system 1 vs system 2 style decisions that I wrote about in an earlier article.

However, for short-term mating as I outlined in the article referenced in the last sentence, the circumstance of mating would dictate that there is not sufficient time or data for the woman to conduct an analysis of the man. Thus, there must exist a secondary model that women utilize to make decisions regarding short-term mating. In this case, it would make sense if this reflects a similar model to the one utilized in general by men, as short-term mating would have to reflect a focus on capitalizing upon a rare opportunity to secure high-value genetic material. When it comes to short-term decisions, social proof such as a man being seen with other women she deems her equal or superior, serves as a guarantee that other women have evaluated the man and their evaluation serves to support her own. In the same regard, a woman who observes a man being treated poorly by such women, will conclude that he has been evaluated by them and found wanting.

Triggering Models

As I wrote in the earlier article on system 1 vs system 2 type decisions:

If one looks at the central points of “Beta Game“, it is very much a system 2 oriented approach. A beta volunteers plenty of data to the woman and dates often take the form of job-interviews where the Beta is attempting to logically convince the woman of his worthiness as a mate. It is as if he is reading a user manual for her about him.

“Alpha Game” on the other hand, is very much a system 1 approach, focusing on arousing emotions, impulsivity and rapid decisions. Alpha game is in a sense the cheat meal a person has because they found themselves in a situation where they could not resist, whereas beta game is the tupperware box of carefully prepared chicken breasts and broccoli.

The same behaviors that cause a woman to leverage her system 2 or 1, are the same that cause her to engage the short-term vs long-term mating model. This is a reflection of the man’s behavior towards her. An observation that can be made about “Beta Game” is that it reflects the old statement “Women use sex to negotiate a relationship, men use a relationship to negotiate sex“. This reflects a deeply held belief among many men that women only have sex in relationships, and require the courting step as a precursor to intimacy, when it can be observed that women are more likely to mate with an alpha and then try to negotiate a relationship from that.

If one looks at the concept of a “shotgun wedding”, something that has occurred and still occurs to this day, it is quite clear that this was not as uncommon as the public narrative would want to suggest. The term for “shotgun wedding” in Japanese translates roughly to “oops-we-did-it marriage”. While the motivations for coercive marriage has been many throughout the world, it has historically been related to restoring the honor of the woman, or ensuring that the child has a father, which makes me wonder how many Alphas found themselves getting a ring on their finger with a shotgun aimed at their back, with the bride-to-be exhilarated that her gambit worked.

Summary and Conclusions

The discussion regarding female short-term vs long-term mating behaviors are not new to manosphere in any regard. They have been around since the first couple of men saw that women seemingly engaged two different behavior sets depending on their perception of a man. Game evolved as a methodology to leveraged the observed behavior and was then field-tested for accuracy. Last week’s post and this post, are tentative evaluations of what characterizes the underlying models that govern these two models and what triggers the preferred use of one over the other.

If one assumes that the two are linked in a causal relationship where system 1 engagement leads to the woman employing a simple lexicographic model, whereas system 2 engagement leads to the use of the elimination by aspects model. This would be supported by manosphere staple principles such as not waiting for sex (it signals that the woman is engaging her system 2 and elimination by aspects model), not spending money on a woman prior to sex (triggers system 2) or appealing to her emotions (jump-starts system 1). Then it follows that one could analyze various game theories, and tactics through the lens of which system of decision-making they appeal to, overtly qualifying yourself means she has to actively evaluate the information you are presenting to her, and thus would lead her to engage her system 2. Leading her off on a journey filled with emotional excitement would appeal to her system 1.

The error often made in Beta game, apart from appealing to her ability to be logical and utilize deductive logic, is that they sub-consciously sense her various hurdles and attempt to live up to them, in effect altering themselves to fit her model, rather than framing the interaction in a manner which triggers the opposite reaction. A woman senses if a man adapts to her, or if she must adapt to him, in the case of the former that serves as a warning signal to engage system 2 and the elimination by aspects model, in the case of the latter it triggers system 2 and the simple lexicographic model.

A note:

I recently launched a Patreon page where I will be posting additional content every month for those who support me and I will do a Google Hangout for the highest tier Patrons (limited to 10 people).

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